


Bad Seed

by Kirby_Crow



Category: Star Wars Episode I: The Phantom Menace
Genre: Alternate Universe, Angst, BDSM, Boys in Chains, Dark, Death, Disturbing Sexual Content, Drama, First Time, M/M, Prison, Violence
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2015-04-01
Updated: 2015-04-01
Packaged: 2018-03-20 19:28:42
Rating: Not Rated
Warnings: Graphic Depictions Of Violence, Major Character Death
Chapters: 1
Words: 12,203
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/3662196
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Kirby_Crow/pseuds/Kirby_Crow
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Obi-Wan deals very badly with being replaced by Anakin. Please pay attention to the warnings before you read this story.<br/>Warnings: Dark Fic with a capital D. If you don't like this sort of thing, you probably should not read this. Violence, death, and disturbing sexual content. That's all I'm telling you, or why read the story? Caveat lector.</p>
            </blockquote>





	Bad Seed

**Author's Note:**

> Disclaimer: Characters portrayed within belong to George Lucas and LucasFilm. (However, this story is mine) No copyright infringement is intended and no money was made off this story.

Master Qui-Gon paced the room as if it were too small for him

 _Perhaps it is,_   Obi-Wan thought as he watched his former master pack, picking up one item and discarding it, putting it in the large travelling trunk only to take it back out, then starting the whole process over again as he talked and opened drawers and smiled.  _After all, he has his Chosen One now. This must all seem very dull to him._

Qui-Gon was more animated than Obi-Wan had ever seen him, talking about Anakin's abilities, explaining to Obi-Wan how extraordinary he was, what an extraordinary thing this meant for the Jedi.

All Obi-Wan heard was how unremarkable he was, how ordinary it had been for the legendary Master Qui-Gon Jinn to have had to endure twelve years of training him.

"And his intuition for mechanics, Obi-Wan, it's amazing," Qui-Gon was saying. "He can deduce how anything works, practically just by looking at it."

"I see," Obi-Wan murmured, watching to see if his former master - his former best friend, mentor and reason for living-  caught the undertone in his voice. Apparently he did not.

"Yes, it's wonderful isn't it?" Qui-Gon enthused, tossing a well-worn tunic and a small wooden box into the trunk. "The masters say he will be the youngest Padawan ever to be made Knight if he keeps going at this rate."

 _If he doesn't shut up about that child,_ Obi-Wan thought.  _I will certainly take that trunk that he's packing so very carelessly and throw it out the window._

He watched through slitted eyes as Qui-Gon practically  _chattered_  on about Anakin's EXTRAORDINARY abilities as the rumpled pile in the trunk grew larger. He thought about tossing the trunk again. He thought about breaking things. He thought about telling Qui-Gon to shut the hell up.

Then he thought of something better.

 _He's so eager to leave me,_  Obi-Wan thought.  _He can't wait to get away with his special new pupil and leave me behind. He can't wait to forget about me._

_And why should I let him?_

He was lost in thought, not realizing that Qui-Gon was calling his name until the hand was on his shoulder and he was looking up into eyes of midnight blue.

"Did you not hear me, Obi-Wan?" Qui-Gon asked, his lips smiling.

 _Two words,_  Obi-Wan thought, looking into eyes that were bright with uncustomary excitement. _I could destroy that elation on his face with two words..._

_And if the next word out of his mouth is **Anakin** , I will._

"I was saying," Qui-Gon chided him as he removed his hand and turned away to close the trunk."That Anakin and I will be leaving on the morning shuttle. You don't have to accompany us all the way to the port if you don't want to."

Obi-Wan's skin tingled where the brief contact had been. "You have to meet with the Council in less than an hour," he said slowly. "That means you would have to take your leave of me tonight. We would have to say goodbye right now, almost."

Qui-Gon picked up the trunk and moved it to the door, dropping it with a thud. "Well, yes," he said carelessly. "That's true. But I won't gone forever, Obi-Wan."

"I know," Obi-Wan said."It's only a year." Again he marveled that Qui-Gon could not hear in his voice what even a marginally talented Jedi could have heard. The deadened tone. The hostility and hurt just under the surface that would have boded very ill for strangers parting. How much more so for two people who had once meant so much to each other?

"A year."

Obi-Wan was mildly startled when he realized he had said it aloud.

Qui-Gon was staring at him now, his brow like a thundercloud. "Pad...," he began. "Obi-Wan--"

"I remember," Obi-Wan said suddenly, amazed that he had found the courage to say it. He gazed into his master's eyes, which were slowly going round with shock and disbelief. For reasons beyond his ken, that made him bolder.

 _"I remember_ ," he stated clearly, rising to his feet and facing Qui-Gon, his hands loose at his sides. "I remember it all. I always have."

"No," Qui-Gon was shaking his head. "No, you don't. I--"

"You thought you had taken the memory from me," Obi-Wan said. "You failed."

And he experienced a rush of thin and unholy glee as he saw the blood draining from Qui-Gon's face, leaving him white and shaken, and heard his horrified whisper;

_"No."_

 

* * *

...he touched the cheek of the young man sitting on the edge of bed, lifting his chin, fingers moving to stroke under the soft, curved line of his jaw. The young man looked up at him with wide and wondering eyes, breath stilled in trepidation.

For his part, Qui-Gon felt more than mere anxiety. It was closer to sheer terror. He was nude, standing exposed before his Padawan, who sat quietly on the edge of the mattress where he had been placed, wondering what was to happen.

Qui-Gon touched the edge of the neckline of Obi-Wan's tunic. "Remove it," he whispered.

Obi-Wan complied with trembling hands. He trusted his master, believed in him, would die for him. He had seen him sick and furious and in a hundred physical and emotional states in between. But nothing in their long association had ever prepared him for being woken from his bed and brought to his master's quarters like this. He had never been bade to sit on his master's bed as he watched the elder Jedi slowly disrobe until he was naked. Had never been approached by his master so cautiously or touched so gently as he was now, bare-chested, his master's fingertips resting lightly on his shoulders.

Most of all, he had never seen his master's thick, dripping erection only inches from his face.

Qui-Gon looked down on his frightened and unsure apprentice.  _Wrongwrongwrong!_  his brain screamed.  _Don't do this, oh don't do this._

But Qui-Gon only watched himself in a bizarre sense of self- detachment as he placed an urging hand on the back of his young apprentice's head and pulled him forward, eyes fixed on those full pink lips, bringing him ever closer to the stiffened cock that seemed so eager to make his acquaintance.

He had endured it long enough, far longer than was healthy. The proof was here, now, in this room. Too many heated nights, thinking about this young man's body pressed tightly to his. Too many strategic withdrawals from sword practice, from wrestling, from a dozen different training activities where he watched the sleek pull and slide of muscles on his beautiful Padawan. Until the evidence of his arousal during training had been impossible to hide, and he had retreated.

Now that desire intruded upon everything. Dominated all his waking thoughts and ate into his bones like cancer. Even the most mundane of ambassadorial tasks, such as negotiating a paltry trade agreement with Senator Palpatine for the citizens of Yavin, had become impossible. He had sat with the senator over an informal lunch, picking at his food, his thoughts drumming cascading images of Obi-Wan's sweat-sheened skin in his mind until he thought he would scream.

Enough. It was enough.

Obi-Wan pitched forward at his master's urging, but stopped when the head of the wet cock touched his lips. He felt warm, bitter-salt fluid dampening his lower lip.

His tongue darted out instinctively to lick it away, and a sense of dark hazard followed when the taste flooded his mouth. He unwillingly drew back. This was so far away from any exercise or training his master had ever asked of him. This was...

 _Master,_ he would have spoken, if he had been able to get the word out. Qui-Gon suddenly cupped his apprentice's face in his hands and drew him forward several inches in one swift motion. The tip of the plush-soft spear pierced his lips, slipped past his defenses and found entrance to the warm cavern of his mouth.

Obi-Wan inhaled sharply though his nose in surprise, but did not pull away. His master's wishes were clear in the firmness of his hands and the intensity of the line of his back; he did not want his Padawan to withdraw.

Well, then. So he would not.

Obi-Wan's palms found their place, bracing against his master's bare, muscular thighs as he was pulled even closer...

 

* * *

In the present, Qui-Gon looked at his former Padawan with grief and shame, then he turned without a sound and strode from the room.

Obi-Wan sank down on the bed, slumping down, holding his face in his hands.  _What have I done? It wasn't like that for me, Master. It was not..._

Qui-Gon was back less than an hour later.

"I have spoken to the Council," he said without preamble, his hands clasped behind his back, shoulders squared. "And I have cancelled our - my- plans for travelling toYavin. I will be remaining here."

Obi-Wan looked up numbly. Qui-Gon saw the marks of tears on his reddened face. He heard the unspoken question:

 _And Anakin?_    
    
Qui-Gon's back straightened. He stared at some point above Obi-Wan's head. "He will be remaining here as well."

"Why?" Obi-Wan demanded.

Qui-Gon shook his head. "You'll have to be more clear. Why what?"

"Why are you staying?"

Again Qui-Gon avoided looking at him. "I should think it was obvious. Because I cannot leave like this. I have to resolve this difficulty with you."

Obi-Wan felt like laughing. He stood, a expression on his face that may have been born as a smile but more closely resembled an ugly rictus of pain.

"This... difficulty. Is that the euphemism you've decided upon? How quaint."

He approached his former master slowly, steps light, arms swinging easy at his side, almost stalking him. "Difficulty. Yes, that will do. But why difficulty? Why not  _complication_  or _predicament._  Or  _bother_  or  _inconvenience_. Why did you settle on difficulty when  _nuisance_  would have done just as well?"

"Obi-Wan-"  Qui-Gon began, looking at him for the first time since that shattering statement, the soldier-straight posture flowing down into defeat.

_I remember._

Obi-Wan did not relent. "Why hedge at all?" he asked, his soft voice lashing at Qui-Gon's skin with whips of scorn. "Why not just say  _dead weigh_ t and be done with it, since you've been itching to cut me loose since the day we landed on Tatooine?"

Qui-Gon shook his head again, denial in every line of him. "It's not true. It isn't."

But in his secret heart Obi-Wan knew it was true, and so did Qui-Gon.

 _I hate that place_ , Obi-Wan raged silently.  _I loathe it. I will never go back there. Never. Not ever._

Too much anger. Too much loss of control. Obi-Wan's hands shook with it, and he trembled as he stood facing his former master as one enemy to another.

The very idea tore at Qui-Gon. "Padawan," he began, his hands lifting in an aborted motion of appeal.

That brought Obi-Wan's head up, his chin lifted in defiance. "That's one word you can't use anymore with me. Because I'm not your Padawan. I won't ever be again."

_Never. Not ever, ever...._

 

* * *

Obi-Wan's palms found their place, bracing against his master's bare thighs as he was pulled even closer.

He tasted salt on his tongue, lips stretched tight around the hard cock in his mouth.  His jaw ached as he struggled to take Qui-Gon's huge member in fully, and he moaned a short protest as the splayed hand on the back of his head pulled him closer, hips thrusting forward, almost gagging him.

Qui-Gon pulled back at the choked sound, leaving him entirely, and Obi-Wan suddenly felt warm hands framing his face. Qui-Gon knelt in front of him.   
    
"Padawan," he heard the husky whisper and found himself suddenly lost in eyes of deepest blue. "Did I hurt you?"

He started to say no, and found the answer smothered by a pair of warm, soft lips covering his own.

Qui-Gon drew back only to say his name. "Obi-Wan," he whispered against his lips, and then kissed him again.

His name, but he had never heard it said like that before. Never with this much seeking and desire and raw need.

Obi-Wan moaned again and leaned forward into the kiss, opening his mouth, feeling the wise tongue slip in and tease his lips and tongue and the ticklish area behind his teeth.

Obi-Wan's hands were suddenly on his master's face, caressing in return, tangling in his thick hair to pull him forward and down.

Qui-Gon hissed at the pure electric shock of contact, skin on skin, one strong body seeking another, as he covered him. Obi-Wan writhed beneath him, legs instinctively parting, arms twining around his neck, throwing himself into the kiss with a totality of abandon that alarmed Qui-Gon, shook him out of the moment and caused him to break that consuming union and pull himself up on his arms.

 _Obi-Wan,_  he tried to say, and found he could say nothing as the young apprentice reached up and dragged the master back to his waiting mouth.

He was tempted. He was sorely tempted to just let it be like this; an equal exchange of self. Just one unseasoned young man opening himself to the experience an elder offered him.

But, as wonderful as it was, it wasn't the truth. An equal relationship was impossible between them, for he was still very much the master, and his apprentice had far too much still to learn from him. In the most basic of terms, he had brought his Padawan here to  _use_  him. Well then, use him he would. Memories could be erased as easily as chalk from stone. Perhaps then this heat would fade from his blood. Perhaps he could concentrate on his duties without experiencing the maddening itch beneath his skin that drove him to steal fleeting touches from this beautiful creature whenever he was near.

Obi-Wan uttered a disappointed moan as Qui-Gon again pulled away from him.   
    
...and found the moan turned to a yelp of pain as Qui-Gon seized his short hair at his nape and pulled his neck back hard.

Obi-Wan's arms went slack automatically, falling away from Qui-Gon. His eyes sought his master's, a question forming on his lips that died when he met the foreign and calculating gaze of the stranger that lay on top of him.

There was no tenderness in that look. No concern or pity or love. Obi-Wan found himself captivated, almost hypnotized by the sudden change in this man he thought he knew. Moonlight poured through the window onto the bed, lining every feature of his master's face with a   
slender outline of silver.

He felt the feather-light-touches on his chin and neck, fingers that caressed for a moment before settling in a possessive clasp around his throat, restricting his air. Not enough to truly choke him, but... a definite warning. Obi-Wan sensed emotions sinking through skin and bone, emanations of thought and feeling from the man who was actively holding him pressed down to the bed. And while he sensed no gentleness in the contact, there was, however, a great quantity of lust.

"Look at me, Obi-Wan."

He did so, and the pressure ceased immediately. He drew in a long, slow breath, feeling his heart begin to race beneath his ribs as the andrenalin poured into his system.

"That's better," Qui-Gon said. His fingers massaged the abused skin of his apprentice's throat. "You always do what I ask of you, don't you?"

Obi-Wan struggled to fathom the amusement in that voice. "I do try to, master," he whispered.

"Then you won't mind," Qui-Gon said mildly, continuing to stroke his neck in a manner that was, to Obi-Wan, both a comfort and a threat. "If I ask you to turn over?"

Why did that suddenly sound like such an impossible request?

After all, it was a night for the impossible. He was lying with his naked master in his bed, in his private quarters, doing things with him that he'd been fantasizing about since puberty. What was so inconceivable about simply turning over?

He found himself obeying. The habit of obedience was ingrained with long years of study and practice, and even though his instinct was telling him to refuse, he found that he could not.

Qui-Gon allowed him the space to move, and Obi-Wan turned his body to lay his cheek and belly against the cool crispness of the sheets. The bed dipped as Qui-Gon rose and moved away.

He resisted the urge to look as he heard the quiet movements of his master around the room, sensing that he would be displeased, and before the urge to glance and see mounted into something unbearable, Qui-Gon suddenly returned.

A hand touched him in the middle of his back, not moving, just placed there as if testing a palm-lock device.

"Raise your arms above your head, Obi-Wan."

More impossibilities. Obi-Wan slowly raised his arms until they were almost touching the low, wooden headboard and managed to keep his voice leveled down to one short, yelping exclamation of shock as he felt cold steel closing around his wrist.

Now he did rebel. No one could blame him. It was too much.

He jerked his wrist back and turned, twisting on the bed, seeking an escape. He quickly realized his mistake when his wrist, tethered by the circle of steel, was yanked roughly above his head. The hand that had been laid on his back with such gentle testing was replaced by a hard knee, and he was ground down into the yielding mattress, his spine creaking.

His short cry of protest was muffled and faint as he felt one wrist being locked onto the bedpost. His other wrist was seized. Something cold touched his hand, and he knew the other arm was being immobilized in a similar fashion.

The pressure eased. The knee left his back and he could breathe again, but Qui-Gon was still there, hovering over him, his knees on either side of his hips, keeping his weight lifted away from him.

Obi-Wan inhaled shakily.  _There must be a way to tell him,_  he thought. T _here are a thousand ways to say no, why can't I think of one?_

And then the opportunity to speak was lost when a white veil fell over his eyes and he felt the bite and press of strong silk against his lips. He twisted his neck, tossing his head, as hard fingers gripped his jaw, jabbing into the pressure point until his mouth opened. A wad of silk material was pushed into his mouth, against his tongue, and he bit down hard too late to catch the fingers that retreated and wrapped the end of the silken gag around his head, tying it at the back of his neck.

Silenced.

Perhaps it was for the best. There was no way he could have remained quiet. Maybe it really was so much better to believe that he never had a choice...

The moonlight was cut off as another length of fabric touched his eyes, and this time Obi-Wan struggled in real fear, bucking against the body straddling him as the terror of blindness closed in, wrapping him in a cloud of dread.

The blindfold tightened, leaving him disoriented and unseeing, adrift in the soft, enveloping sea of the bed, Qui-Gon's knees still clasped reassuringly to his hips. The helmsman at his core.

Now he could relax. No choices. No diffidence or decisions or awkward half-starts and beginnings. No failed movements.

No choice.

Obi-Wan believed with all his soul that that was what he wanted, right up until the moment when he felt hard fingers curve around the waistline of his sleeping pants and jerk them down to his thighs, exposing his bare skin to the chilly air.

 

 

* * *

  
 

"We're not going!" Anakin yelled at him. "We're not going to Yavin because of YOU!"

Obi-Wan faced down the angry child with a sense of deep annoyance and resentment. Why did it have to be Anakin that he ran into in the halls of the Temple? Why not a rabid bantha or a hungry rancor?

"Nonsense," Obi-Wan said. "Your master's mind is his own. I had nothing to do with his decision."

"You're lying," Anakin accused. "Why do you hate me?"

Waves of anger and jealousy radiated off the child. Rage. Dislike. Something approaching true hate. Obi-Wan was stung at the unfairness of it all, and he was suddenly wearied of dealing with Anakin. The boy was Qui-Gon's problem, not his. Qui-Gon had wanted him, let Qui-Gon handle him. He had no obligation.

"I don't hate you," Obi-Wan said deliberately. "I don't think much of you at all."

"You're mean!" Anakin fairly screamed, balling his small hands into fists. "He doesn't even  _want_ to be your master, you know. He hasn't for a long,  _long_  time."

Obi-Wan's throat convulsed and he closed his eyes for a brief moment, then opened them wide in shock and pain as he felt the mental feelers being sunk into his brain like hooked barbs.

This... this  _child_  was reading him!  Without permission! It was a gross invasion of privacy, an almost indecent probing into the mental processes of another.

"He doesn't even want to look at you," Anakin was saying, a vicious little hiss in his immature voice that twisted in Obi-Wan's guts.  _Oh, gods, what kind of viper has my master taken to his breast?_

"I was glad we were going away. I'll be so glad when we  _are_  gone and he forgets you and we'll _never have to see you again!"_

Anakin's last words rose on a muffled scream as Obi-Wan reached out with the Force and shoved Anakin backwards several feet. Much farther than he intended. The sheer power of the touch to his mind had caused Obi-Wan to seriously miscalculate his antagonist's strength. It was natural. It was completely understandable

And they would call it inexcusable.

Obi-Wan realized that when he saw Anakin teeter on the edge of the stone steps behind him and suddenly lose the battle with gravity, toppling backwards. He heard the sickening crack as flesh hit rock and the bone snapped, and then young Anakin was lying there on the stone flags, crying like any injured child would, seeming so much smaller than the huge, ugly thing that had invaded his thoughts.

 _Surely,_  Obi-Wan thought in horror and dismay.  _Surely this not what I meant to do? To inflict injury on a mere infant a fraction of my size?_

Then he remembered what he saw in Anakin's mind when he seized that immature psyche and thrust him forcibly out of his own consciousness; the hissing breath and black mask, the long, slow destruction of his world, his future, and all he had ever held dear. Most of all, there was the _name._

Remorse died in him. He heard footsteps behind him, the creche masters summoned at a dead run to Anakin's mental distress and cries of pain. He turned to face their concerned and questioning eyes, the beginnings of scorn and anger as they quickly read the guilt in him and realized what had happened.

"Attend to young Anakin," he said in a hollow and anesthetized tone, giving them nothing more to read . "I will report myself to Master Jinn and tell him what I've done."

The female creche master knelt and gathered Anakin up in her arms, her sensitive hands seeking the broken wrist bone, soothing energies flowing into the child. "Ani, shhhh. It's alright. Help is coming," she crooned, looking daggers at Obi-Wan.

He turned and strode away, leaving the Jedi caretakers to stare wordless after him.

 

* * *

Obi-Wan knelt on the floor of Qui-Gon's quarters, arranging his robes and composing himself for meditation, but peace would not come.

He had broken Anakin's wrist, so he had been told. Qui-Gon had been duly informed and had gone to see the boy in the infirmary.

 _Not **the boy** ,_ Obi-Wan forcibly reminded himself.  _His Padawan. **His** Padawan._

He tried to silence the turmoil of his mind, to prepare for Qui-Gon's inevitable anger and to summon some manner of defense for himself and his actions.

But all he could do was remember...

 

* * *

The blindfold tightened, leaving him disoriented and unseeing, adrift in the soft, enveloping sea of the bed, Qui-Gon's knees still clasped reassuringly to his hips. The helmsman at his core.

Now he could relax. No choices. No diffidence or decisions or awkward half-starts and beginnings. No failed movements.

No choice.

Obi-Wan believed with all his soul that that was what he wanted, right up until the moment when he felt hard fingers curve around the waistline of his sleeping pants and jerk them down to his thighs, exposing his bare skin to the chilly air.

He whimpered into the gag, spit gathering in his mouth, hearing the hollow knock of metal against wood as he futilely strained against his bonds, bruising his wrists. Hands explored him, squeezing the firm, rounded muscles of his rump, fingers digging into him. He shivered and bucked at the sudden, shocking feel of Qui-Gon's mouth on his skin, tasting the flesh at the small of his back, tongue sliding up his spine.   
    
A steely hand descended on the nape of his neck. "Be still."

Qui-Gon's lifted himself up, manipulating a knee between his legs, spreading him. Obi-Wan felt a sudden, primal fear at this intrusion and tried to scissor his legs shut, but Qui-Gon had already parted his thighs and now held them open with the bulk of his body. A stinging slap cracked across his bottom, accompanied by silence. No words were needed. He knew the meaning.

_Submit._

His hips were seized and pulled back, arching his body upwards to meet Qui-Gon's. Obi-Wan made one final attempt at resistance and shouted against the gag, producing a barely audible, smothered sound. His mental shout was much louder, and a gentle hand was suddenly on his back, caressing him, fingers sliding lower, down  into the cleft there.

"Easy," came the deep voice into his world. Soothing, commanding, thick as honey with eroticism.

A wide finger probed him and he pulled away, squirming, from the uncomfortable, unfamiliar intrusion. A muscled arm slid around his waist, holding him still as the finger plunged deeper, his thighs pushed wider apart by Qui-Gon's legs.

The intruding finger left him, replaced by something cold and slick. Obi-Wan felt it pressed into him, an oily gel that aided the return of the invading touch. Two fingers into him now, thrusting hard.

He grunted as the stiffened digits plunged into him repeatedly, quick, crude, pumping motions that made him writhe and twist on the bed, guttural sounds issuing from his throat.

Suddenly, it all ceased. The fingers were again withdrawn, leaving him sore and stretched. The arm that had captured his waist retreated. Obi- Wan sagged down, breathing heavily through his nose, the muscles of his back and his bound arms shuddering with tension.

Then he was pressed down, pushed into the yielding softness of the bed as Qui-Gon shifted his full weight on top of him, the large hands braced on his hips and ass, pulling his cheeks apart. The warm, blunt tip of Qui-Gon's cock nudged his opening.

A deep sob was wrenched from Obi-Wan's chest as Qui-Gon shoved into him. The pain was enormous, a spike of wood being driven into him. He cried out around the gag and with his mind, hot tears leaking from his blindfold and wetting his mouth, and it availed him nothing.

Qui-Gon's mind was closed to him, was closed  _around_  him as well, shutting down his mental broadcasting in a manner that was beyond his experience. More than the silken gag in his mouth silenced him. He knew then, for the first time, how fully he was possessed. How it had always been so.

And he revelled in it.

Qui-Gon's body coiled and thrust into him, that long pole slamming hard into his body, rocking his shoulders forward with every brutal stab. He heard, with a kind of dazed astonishment, Qui-Gon's voice speaking in broken, guttural phrases.

_"Yes! Oh yes. Oh, gods... you're so tight... so good..."_

And even as he sensed the small, coiling serpent of arousal stirring deep in his belly, he felt Qui-Gon's orgasm overtake him, the sudden, almost iron-hardness of the cock inside him before it pulsed with the hot stream of release, spurting, Qui-Gon's stomach shuddering against his back...

 

 

* * *

Qui-Gon tenderly removed his bonds and washed his torn wrists, kissed his mouth gently and bathed each and every bruise with his tongue. He  told Obi-Wan that he loved him, and then he laid his hands on his brow and used his power to try and make him forget.

But Obi-Wan had not forgotten. Neither that night nor the two years that had followed since.He remembered every touch, every scent and bright flare of pain with exquisite clarity, and all that he knew- each and every time that the memory came to him again-  was how very much he wanted it to happen again.

The deception had not been easy, for Qui-Gon was a master and knew Obi-Wan's mind almost as well as he did. He had had to become a consummate actor very quickly, for Qui-Gon was no fool. Thankfully, human nature was on Obi-Wan's side, for it is ridiculously easy to convince someone of something they already want to believe. Even Qui-Gon Jinn was not immune from that flaw, and so Obi-Wan came away from Qui-Gon's bed with more than one lesson learned.

For two years he had pretended, sensitive to his master's wishes, to Qui-Gon's deep and utter conviction that he had mercilessly abused his Padawan merely to satisfy his own tortured body. He had seen the pain in the dark blue eyes and had schooled himself to ignorance and blase' inquiries, pretending that the quick and gentle hand touching his hair after one of those pained looks was only fond affection. It took every bit of will Obi-Wan possessed not to arch into that touch and rub himself against his master's hand like a cat in season.

After Qui-Gon had saved his life during a particularly hazardous mission, Obi-Wan had again seen the proof of his master's love and concern as it flowed off him in almost visible waves, and he had vowed then, safe in Qui-Gon's arms, never to let him know that he remembered, never to put him through the torment of it.

So much for vows.

The door slid open. Qui-Gon entered the room like the tide, flowing, seeming to fill every available space.

"Is it true?"

Qui-Gon stood over the kneeling young man, a towering beacon of anger and fury. "Yes, Ma--  Qui-Gon."

"Why?" Qui-Gon demanded at white heat. He was as angry as Obi- Wan had ever seen him. "Why would you do something so damned brutish?"

Obi-Wan felt the demented humor pulling at the edges of his mouth, gibbering in his mind, daring him to laugh out loud. "Why did you?"

This was not what he had intended to do. He groped for the obligatory phrases;  _I have no excuse. He is your Padawan. I submit myself to your judgement_. But the words would not come.

Instead he craned his neck, his eyes glinting with a strange light, and grinned widely at the giant looming over him. "Maybe I can make him forget."

Obi-Wan was unprepared for the swift and vicious manner in which Qui-Gon reached for him, tangling his fist in the short ponytail at the nape of his neck, hauling him to his feet by pure strength. Nor did he anticipate the iron bands of his former master's arms around him as he was drawn into a crushing embrace, the lips that were suddenly pressed hard against his cheek.

"Don't play games with me," Qui-Gon's deep voice, shaking with an intensity of emotion he strove desperately to contain, breathed into his ear. "I promise you regret if you do. A great deal of it."

Obi-Wan began to tremble, his previous amusement vanishing like smoke into the air. "Master..." he said, the title ripped from him.

Qui-Gon's hand curled around his jaw and tightened, holding his face immobile. He tipped his chin up, forcing Obi-Wan to meet his eyes. "Tell me what you did," he commanded.

Obi-Wan could feel his lips begin to quiver and his eyes fill with tears. He raged against the display his body was betraying him with, but seemed to have lost even the most rudimentary of controls. He felt tears spill hotly over his cheeks.

"I hurt him," he said. Stark. Honest. The simplest of truths.

"Why?" Qui-Gon demanded, the stony gaze flickering only when Obi- Wan's tears slid down and touched his punishing hand.

Obi-Wan closed his eyes. "Because," he tried to speak around the lump that was strangling him. "Because you're mine," he lied, hiding the real reason.

Qui-Gon hesitated a bare second before nodding. "As you are mine. As you have always been." Then he kissed him.

Obi-Wan almost sobbed as Qui-Gon slid an arm around his neck and pulled him close, his mouth grinding against him, hands clutching at his back, his shoulders.   
    
He barely felt the strong arms dip and shift, his mind almost leaving him  when Qui-Gon swept him off his feet into the great brawny arms and carried to the low bed.

"You agree?" Qui-Gon murmured against his throat. "This is your own will?" It was more than a question. It was the rest of Obi-Wan's life and all of his soul.

Obi-Wan nodded fiercely, his hands pulling at his master's clothing, pushing the barriers between them away as he was lowered onto the bed. "Yes," he whispered fiercely. "Yes, gods, yes. It always was."

 _Always two, master. But I know what that means now, the duty and the great burden it confers upon me. And I will not fail you as you almost failed me..._    
 

* * *

Obi-Wan Kenobi stood in shadow, hidden in a narrow corner, contemplating the sleeping child on the cot before him.

His hand tightened convulsively on the small, blue bottle in his palm, almost wishing it would break and the deadly contents be allowed to flow into the cuts in his flesh, absolving him of action, setting him free.   
    
Relieving him of his latest vow.

 _Always two,_  he thought.  _I deceived you tonight, in your arms, when I declined to show you what I had glimpsed in this child's mind._

_I hid from you the images of reddened fury, the overweening pride in his own intellect, the burning shame of slavery, the greed for power and the unreasoning hatred of all who stand between him and his own wants. I hid from you the dark name that could only have been given to him by a fellow Sith. I saw his true heart, Qui-Gon, but you never will. Too blind, you are, to too many things. Even I, child that I was, was able to lie to you for years._

_You trust too much in your own abilities. You are flawed, my master, perhaps even irredeemably so, but I love you anyway, and for all your faults you are **my**  master. We are bound together forever. I know that now._

Obi-Wan approached the cot silently, cat-footed with extreme caution, easing the tiny cork out of the bottle as he came to stand over the sleeping boy, careful not to let his shadow come between the moonlight streaming in the paned window and the figure on the bed.

Seeing the deceptive serenity of that cherubic face, he hesitated for only a moment more, his traitor heart quailing in him, weakening his resolve, before he lightly touched the very tip of the wetted cork to Anakin's lips.

_A mere drop is all that is needed. Odorless. Tasteless. Untraceable. 'What a tragedy for the Jedi' , they will say, and know not how close they come to the truth._

"Farewell, Vader," he whispered, and rejoined the shadows.   
 

###   **-Ten years later-**

Evil rarely begins as a tangible thing. It starts, as does all life, (and evil is a living thing, no doubt about that) with a single seed. One profane action germinating unseen, unknown, in our midst, until the tree of corruption, with its black-tipped thorns and diseased fruit, blossoms forth.

So thought Qui-Gon Jinn as he listened to the sound of his once- apprentice crashing through the scorched timbers and rotting bricks, searching for him.

Squatting against the shelter of a burned-out wall. Filthy, hungry, thirsty, energy all but spent, in the ruins of what had once been the Jedi Temple of Yavin. Only the dark husk of the main temple remained. Everything else... dust and ashes. Like the galaxy in the wake of what Obi-Wan and Emperor Palpatine had wrought upon it.

He had come to the remains of the old cistern for water, only to find that Obi-Wan had fouled it with poison. No water, then. There had once been a grove of juma trees with their bright pink fruits hanging down like offerings from heaven. He had gone there to see if a few straggling trees remained, only to find the grove freshly fired and still smoking. Apparently there had been, until Obi-Wan had set fire to the grove. Even the edible roots of the trees had been liberally laced with a fine white dust that Qui-Gon knew as lethal from ten feet away.

 _Oh, he's clever, he is,_ Qui-Gon thought to himself. What was once a surge of pride now registering within him as a barb of dismay and despair.  _I have taught him too well. I might have missed that, but not my Obi-Wan. No. He has a feel for details._

Qui-Gon knew he might very well die today at the hands of his creation.   
    
"Qui-Gon!" the disembodied voice shouted, ringing through the blackened timbers. "You might as well come out. I will find you, you know. There's nowhere to hide on Yavin anymore. Like there was nowhere for Mace to hide on Coruscant!"

Qui-Gon gritted his teeth in his hiding place, remembering the mad dash from the remains of the Temple on Coruscant. Mace turning at that familiar voice, only to see a gross parody of Obi-Wan laughing at him and pointing a blaster. And then Obi-Wan had fired.

Qui-Gon covered his face with his hands as that voice came at him again, a sing-song rhyme, taunting him as he sat there with the image of Mace's ruined body in his mind.

 _"Here comes a strummer to sing you to bed! Here comes a chopper to chop off your head!"_    
    
They had not offered Palpatine's troops a fight. Even Yoda had known resistance against those massive numbers would be futile And so they had run, he and Mace, two of the last to leave. The transport hovered on the docking bay, its ramp already lifting, jets firing, when Mace had halted and they both had turned at that once-loved voice.

And then... nightmare. The back of Mace's head exploded in a shower of red mist, and Qui-Gon caught him as he fell, already dead, to the metal-plated ramp.

He had cradled the corpse of his friend, heedless to the warning cries coming from inside the ship, and took the precious time to glare at his former apprentice.

Obi-Wan had calmly holstered the blaster and drawn his lightsaber.  He ignited the weapon and saluted him with the glowing red blade, a clear invitation. Qui-Gon dropped Mace's empty shell unceremoniously and leaped for the rapidly ascending ramp, closing his ears to the howl of rage that chased him into the ship and through these ten years and a thousand sweat-soaked nightmares.

In the present, Qui-Gon jumped as Obi-Wan's voice rang out startlingly near.

_"Qui-Gon! Come out and let me kill you so I can get off this stinking rock!"_

He heard jovial glee in that voice, but also... annoyance. Yes, that was it. Obi-Wan was annoyed. Apparently the Emperor Palpatine, or Darth Sidious, as he liked to style himself now, would not allow his minion to leave until the last Jedi was eradicated from Yavin. And Obi-Wan was finding that task somewhat harder than he had envisioned.

He had caught up to his former master three days ago, but had only managed to hear him crashing through the ruins before Qui-Gon had simply disappeared. Several hours of beating the stunted new growth of foliage and rattling his saber amid the wreckage had produced nothing, and so Obi-Wan had bided his time, rested, and began the hunt again at dawn. Two days later he found a meager trail only to have it fizzle out into nothing when it came to a thin, rocky stream. Neither were his Jedi-taught abilities helping him. The Force itself remained solidly closed to Obi-Wan in the matter of Qui-Gon, as if it knew what dark thing he intended. Obi-Wan was running out of rations and clean, potable water, and Palpatine refused to send him any more. Apparently, his dark master was becoming impatient with his failure.

And Qui-Gon Jinn simply refused to die.

"QUI-GONNNN!!!"

The Force-amplified voice came at Qui-Gon with the power of thunder, and he winced in spite of himself. He knew Obi-Wan was getting desperate. A perverse sense of pity stole into his heart, and he throttled it savagely, walling his emotions behind iron, severing any connection to the Force or his former Padawan with a sword of steel.

He was nothing. He was nobody. He was this blade of struggling grass, or this bit of broken brick. He was an undernourished vole scrounging for food. Qui-Gon cloaked his existence in his belief that he was truly these things, that he was anything except a Jedi Master hiding from the murderous intent of a man he had once loved. Thus he remained invisible to Obi-Wan and even to the Force. He was simply not there.

"Come out, you old bastard!"

 _Not bloody likely, apprentice-mine,_ Qui-Gon muttered in the inner sanctum of his brain as he began to tie off a last knot to balance the counterweight of the trap-release. He had suspended the pendulum in the ruins some twenty meters in front of him. It was positioned directly behind the 3 meter pit he had dug. The pit itself was flawlessly concealed by small bushes and ground debris that were heaped atop the net of wires and scrap Qui-Gon had woven to keep them swaying above the crudely-dug hole. The pendulum he had constructed was a twisted section of steel girder beam he had salvaged from the wreckage of the temple behind him. Mangled steel, melted glass and broken rock were all that remained of the scorched world, and a single girder beam balanced on the top of a crumbling stone pillar was easily overlooked.

Qui-Gon had knew the glitch of a pit-trap: Jedi can levitate. Ideally, by the time Obi-Wan discovered that he was about to step into a trap and called to the Force, Qui-Gon would release the pendulum and the steel girder would swing down and knock him off his feet. Hopefully *into* the pit, but if not there was always tomorrow.

One did not become a Jedi Master overnight, and Qui-Gon had learned patience.

Qui-Gon finished tying off the rope and risked a glance over the remains of the low rock wall he was huddled behind. Sheltered in his denial of the Force and his own existence, he was as invisible to Obi- Wan as the air he breathed. Qui-Gon saw that Obi-Wan was only a few steps away from the pit now, a lean, darkly-clad figure that stood stock-still and listening, alert for the slightest hint of his formast master's presence.

Qui-Gon closed his eyes and took a deep breath. At last, he allowed himself to think of Mace, of a more innocent Obi-Wan in his golden youth, and then of all the horror that had followed Anakin's death. Memory consumed him, and he allowed the bitter pain and rage to blaze up around him. Almost weeping, Qui-Gon opened himself to the Force.

Obi-Wan's reaction was explosive. He whirled and made an unerring bee-line for Qui-Gon's location, already running, his lightsaber drawn,  teeth bared in a feral grin. The unpleasant leer died as his booted foot touched the edge of the net and the ground gave way beneath him. Immediately, Obi-Wan called to the Force, and at that moment Qui- Gon released the counterweight that held the steel girder balanced behind Obi-Wan.   
    
Even then, Obi-Wan may have escaped the pendulum had not Qui-Gon chosen at that moment to stand up, allowing Obi-Wan to look on his master for the first time in ten years.

Tall, as always. Muscular and strong, as always, his back straight and his shoulders squared proudly. Gray hair knotted into a ratty ponytail, clothes ripped and filthy, eyes haggard and burning. The sight stunned Obi-Wan, and in that split-second of shock the steel beam hit him square in the back and knocked him flat, down into the pit.   
    
Qui-Gon closed his eyes as Obi-Wan's choking scream drifted up from the pit. Yes, the sharpened wooden spikes he had placed in the pit had done their job, piercing the flesh of his beloved Padawan, perhaps fatally. A grotesque red flower of pain bloomed in the Force, and he allowed it to pass through him, accepting his role in it.

Qui-Gon stepped slowly to the edge of the pit and looked down. Despite all his resolve, he was unprepared for the sight that awaited him. Obi-Wan, clad wholly in black, blonde beard stained with blood as he coughed red fluid from his lungs, the obscene, gore-stained tips of two of the spikes protruding from his shoulder and back. He writhed in the dirt that was rapidly turning to mud, wetted with the death blood of a Jedi.

 _Why can I not move?_ Qui-Gon asked himself.  _I should be able to move, to speak, but I can do nothing. I can only stand here and watch my heart die in this pit._

He heard Obi-Wan's mental scream to his master on the ship orbiting high above, and also felt Obi-Wan's consuming grief and horror as that same master turned away contemptuously, giving him up for a dead weakling, denying him. Qui-Gon felt the black presence of Sidious recede, and knew that the ship carrying the emperor was leaving orbit

The Sith Lord was abandoning his dying apprentice. Obi-Wan closed his eyes and turned his cheek to the bloody muck of the pit. He moaned piteously, a small sound of grief and inestimable loss.

"Master..." he whispered.

It was the key that unlocked Qui-Gon's paralysis. Without hesitation, he leaped agilely into the pit. He bent down beside Obi-Wan and turned him, roughly examining his injuries, ignoring the tortured scream of pain as he pulled the sodden and unresisting body off the reddened spikes.

 _ **That**  for all the others who have screamed in pain as they died by your hand, _Qui-Gon thought. He cradled Obi-Wan as he dug in his ragged tunic for a pocket that had been sewn shut, ripping it open with his fingernails. Obi-Wan's eyes were fluttering. Qui-Gon showed him what he had in his hand.

A glimmer of understanding flickered in Obi-Wan's green eyes as he looked at the tiny transponder Qui-Gon held. "All this... just to get me..." he whispered.

Qui-Gon nodded. "All for you." He pressed the activator button on the transponder, calling the small ship hiding in the cloaking circumference of the magnetic pole.

Obi-Wan lost consciousness just as he heard the whine of stellar engines tremble the ground above him. He did not feel the kiss that was pressed to his temple, nor the trembling in the arms that held him close.   
  

* * *

He could not live with it. In the end, he could not. The knowledge of what he had done - how he had murdered Anakin Skywalker for reasons he convinced himself were noble - ate at him until there was nothing left to devour, and he was ripe for the poison Palpatine spilled into his ear.

These were the things Qui-Gon Jinn told himself as he watched Obi- Wan sleeping in his bunk.

The room was a cell, a subtly sophisticated prison constructed to keep a dark Jedi contained safely inside. It was bare of all furnishings except the plain bunk that occupied the corner. Scratches and long gouges marked the panelled walls, evidence of Obi-Wan's daily destruction of his cell, and hence the absence of anything that could possibly be used as a projectile. The few masters who were left alive had all fled here, to Bandomeer, to huddle inside the small, shabby Temple and await the devouring end the new Empire represented.

And this man asleep before him was responsible.

 _Not entirely alone,_  he thought.  _You had a hand in his fate, as well._

Obi-Wan had been tentatively labeled a convalescent prisoner. The rehabilitative mind-probes that Yoda had been performing on him for the past week while Obi-Wan was held under Qui-Gon's sleeping net had so far been ineffective. Qui-Gon reflected sadly that there was no panacea for the Dark Side. No magic cure to eradicate the taint of pollution in Obi-Wan's very soul. Only the round-the-clock concerted efforts of six Jedi masters kept the cell force-locked and its prisoner unable to access his own Jedi powers.

Qui-Gon sighed and waved his fingers over the sleeping man's form, releasing him from the compulsion laid on him. His eyes lingered on the lean lines of muscle under the tight black habit Obi-Wan had refused to relinquish. He studied the patrician features- the golden, upswept brows, the blond stubble of beard scattered across the molded chin, the proud tilt to his nose. He had once loved to kiss that chin, to cover those lips with his own.

Such thoughts were too painful. "Wake up, Obi-Wan," he said abruptly.

"A sleep-net again," Obi-Wan mumbled, opening his pale eyes a crack. He smacked his lips as if he tasted something foul. "And Yoda has been trampling through my mind once more, as have you. Feels like a pack of bantha have been herded through my head."

"I apologize for your discomfort," Qui-Gon said. "Here," he touched Obi-Wan's brow lightly as he lay on the bed.

The pounding in Obi-Wan's skull receded immediately. He watched Qui-Gon with narrow suspicion. "You never taught me that."   
    
Was that accusation in his tone? "You didn't wait for me to teach you. You went with Palpatine."

"I did not  _go_  with him," Obi-Wan quibbled, sitting up and stretching. "You imply that I was asked. Lord Sidious took me," he said, giving Palpatine his title out of habit.

"You didn't put up much of a fight," Qui-Gon snapped, remembering the day Obi-Wan had been taken, a legion of troops between them, Palpatine determined to have his dark apprentice if he had to destroy half of Coruscant to get him.

Which, Qui-Gon thought, was very nearly what had happened.

"You could teach me now," Obi-Wan was saying. "I'm willing to learn from you."

Qui-Gon stared at him, trying to reconcile the hardened man before him with the beautiful boy who had been ripped from his side. "You are transparent," he said. "You would be so even if I had not been inside your mind. The only reason you would want to learn from me is so you could kill your Sith master and take his place. You want his power. That much is obvious."

"And what do you want, Qui-Gon?"

That husky voice had lost none of its charm. Qui-Gon felt it caress him, allowed it, took a deep breath and spoke the deepest truth he knew. "I want you."

Obi-Wan sneered at the confession as Qui-Gon stared at him longingly, reserving nothing of himself, allowing Obi-Wan to experience all that he felt.

Obi-Wan scorned the love Qui-Gon was blatantly offering him. "You look on your death, old man."

Qui-Gon merely nodded, and Obi-Wan felt a stab of disappointment in his failure to wound his former master. Even the deepest wounds eventually form a protective scar.

"Probably. But at least I will die a Jedi."

"Let me out of this cursed room," Obi-Wan seethed. "Give me back my lightsaber and face me like a man, and we'll see who is the true Jedi."

Qui-Gon turned away. "I already know the answer to that." He sighed heavily and leaned his shoulder against the wall, resting his eyes on the bar of sunlight that streamed in through the very small, barred grate set high in the wall. "I am so sorry, Obi-Wan. So very sorry for what happened."

Obi-Wan folded his arms contemptuously and pretended to ignore him. Qui-Gon felt his denial, shrugged and spoke anyway.

"I .. asked myself..." he began hesitantly. "Later. .I asked myself how I could have done it. How I could have abused you so brutally. Then, when he took you, I knew. It was him. Palpatine."

Qui-Gon turned and walked to Obi-Wan's bunk. He sat on the bed next to him. "I had spent all that week with him, hammering out a trade agreement. It was he that influenced my thoughts, put you into my mind in such a... a depraved light that I could think of nothing else. I burned for you, I ached. I thought only of you. And then I finally weakened. It is the only way I could have done what I did to you. At the time I felt only shame. I couldn't imagine how I had wanted it that way between us. I wanted you, yes. But not like that. Never like that."

Obi-Wan looked on him with vast amusement, a smile twitching his bearded lips. "Is this the tale you tell yourself in the night, Qui-Gon?"

"It's the truth," Qui-Gon said wearily. "Search your feelings. You know it to be true. Yet... ultimately, the failure is mine."

He patted Obi-Wan's hand  "I'm sorry, Obi-Wan," he repeated. Qui- Gon stood, only to find that Obi-Wan had covered his hand with his own and was now holding it, preventing from moving away.

"Sorry, are you?" Obi-Wan said softly, looking down at the hand in his. He turned Qui-Gon's palm, spreading the thick fingers, tracing invisible lines across them before lifting it up to press softly against his lips. Before Qui-Gon could pull away, Obi-Wan had pressed that palm to his neck  "Show me how sorry you are."

There was a catch in Obi-Wan's voice as he unhooked the fastening at his collar and drew aside the cloth to bare more of his throat. "Show me you didn't mean it." He pushed Qui-Gon's unresisting hand several inches down the front of his tunic.

"Obi-Wan--" Qui-Gon began as his former Padawan rose to face him.

Obi-Wan began jerking angrily at the laces that bound his tunic together, stripping it off him, revealing an impressively muscled chest. "Show me."

Qui-Gon shook his head, emotions warring within him. Obi-Wan had been cold and mocking since he had been brought here. This behavior was a radical change, but whether it portended a change of heart or a turn for the worse he did not know. Was it an honest seeking, or just a ploy to entrap him? He had to take the chance that his apprentice was reaching out to him.

"What would you have me do?"

Obi-Wan again took Qui-Gon's hand in both of his and brought it to his lips. He suckled on the tip of one finger, swirling his tongue around the digit, teeth nibbling the pad.

Qui-Gon stood mute, aching inside with a terrible emptiness as he watched Obi-Wan close his eyes and plunge the finger into his mouth, letting it slip out briefly before seizing it and sucking it back in.

Obi-Wan trailed the captured hand down his chest. "If you're so sorry, old man," he whispered . "You won't want to do this." Guiding his hand, Obi-Wan traced the wetted finger around one nipple, arching his back to the touch.

Qui-Gon hissed as a surge of desire pulsed through him. The sight of Obi-Wan pleasuring himself with his hand, his head back, the strong column of his throat defined, sent a tremble through his arm to Obi- Wan's skin.

Obi-Wan closed his eyes on a spasm of pleasure and slid Qui-Gon's hand down to the vee of darkling gold hair that plunged into the front of his breeches. He sketched those fingers through the dusting of fine hairs. "Touch me,"

Qui-Gon struggled for control. "Obi-Wan," he injected all the stern disapproval he could muster into his voice. "Stop it."

Obi-Wan suddenly maneuvered Qui-Gon's hand to the hard bulge at his groin. "Touch me, Qui-Gon."

Qui-Gon bit off a groan between his teeth and surged forward. He gripped Obi-Wan's hips hard enough to bruise, holding him still.

"Stop this," he ordered. His face was so close to Obi-Wan's that he felt the other man's warm breath on his lips.

Obi-Wan twined his arms softly around Qui-Gon's neck, non- aggressiveness in every turn of muscle, carefully broadcasting his intentions. He unbound the clasp holding Qui-Gon hair back, drawing his fingers slowly through the shining mass before sweetly pressing a kiss against his cheek.

Qui-Gon groaned at the performance of the tender acts he had dreamed of for so long, and suddenly his hands were sliding around to cup under Obi-Wan's buttocks and pull him forward. Obi-Wan was pliant as silk in his arms, offering no resistance as Qui-Gon began to rub himself against his body. Qui-Gon dipped his head to nip gently on Obi-Wan's shoulder, to slide his tongue along the line of his throat.

"Obi-Wan," he whispered raggedly into his ear. "I have missed you."

Obi-Wan hugged Qui-Gon tighter, laying his cheek against the broad chest to listen to the rapid heartbeat. "I told you you weren't sorry," he whispered lowly.

And then Qui-Gon was dragging his head up and kissing him recklessly, reveling in the novel feel of Obi-Wan's silken beard against his lips, mouth grinding against him before his hands sought Obi-Wan's shoulders and pushed him down to the bed. Qui-Gon pulled at his own clothes, breathless, eager for the feel of bare skin beneath him.

Obi-Wan raised his hands up and gripped the headboard. He wetted his lips with the tip of his pink tongue. "Tie me up, " he panted as Qui-Gon fumbled with the fastening of his breeches. "Use your belt. You know you want to."

Qui-Gon froze. Obi-Wan had always reminded him of a sleek and graceful cat. Now he laid back and undulated beneath Qui-Gon, watching him with avid, feline eyes.

"Do it," he urged, parting his legs and thrusting his hips upward. "Take me any way you want to. My mouth. My ass. I won't fight you. Not unless you want me to."

 _The worst part of this,_  Qui-Gon thought as he looked down in horror on his once-lover. _Is that he's right._

Deliberately, Qui-Gon slowly refastened his breeches over his wilting member and pulled away from the open and wiling body under him.  He stood and looked down on Obi-Wan, who remained sprawled wantonly across the bunk, tapping his ankle against the wall.

"I almost had you there," Obi-Wan's eyes were bright with triumph. He gave Qui-Gon an unpleasant smile. "Another minute and you would've had me turned on my belly like a two-credit whore."

Qui-Gon nodded, swallowing the lump in his throat and struggling to control his rapid breathing. "I don't doubt that for one moment, Obi- Wan."

Shaking violently, Qui-Gon turned and strode to the door. "Lock!" he shouted, keying the coded door that would open only for him. As he stepped out into the warm afternoon air he heard a loud crash against the steel door behind him. Obi-Wan had thrown the bunk against the wall. He heard the sound of ripping cloth, and knew that he was also probably tearing the bedding and mattress to shreds.

Birds were innocently singing in the golden afternoon, the air scented with bee-pollen. The contrast between the present and what he had just experienced was obscene. Qui-Gon scrubbed his wrist across his mouth, feeling shamed and soiled, and almost wept. He took a deep breath and blindly groped his way down the shaded walkway to a bench, his sight shattered in a prism of tears. He sank down on the seat heavily, his hands clasped between his knees, and remained there until he heard the tap of Master Yoda's cane in his otherwise silent approach.

"Tested him, have you?" The diminutive Jedi master asked.

"No, my master," Qui-Gon answered automatically, striving and failing to keep the defeated sadness from his voice. "He has tested me."

Yoda hummed thoughtfully. He waited, and when he saw that nothing more was forthcoming, he tapped his cane sharply on the stone flags.

"Decide, you must," he declared. "If saved, he can be. If not..." he let the verdict hang in the fragrant air.

Qui-Gon shuddered. "I planned his capture for nearly a year. Should I give up now? I need time."

"Time?" Yoda's sharp eyes missed nothing. "Believe that, do you?"

Qui-Gon searched his feelings and knew that the answer was no. Time alone would not heal Obi-Wan Kenobi of a decade of embracing evil. He was doubtful that anything would at this point. He shuddered again as he recalled the information gleaned during the healing sessions he and Yoda had performed on Obi-Wan;  that the embrace of evil had, at various times, been quite literal. His muscles twitched in sympathetic memory. He could almost feel Palpatine's cold, claw-like hands on his back, the parchment texture of the stiffened cock as it was forced inside his mouth. Cold, so cold.

"Prepared, you must be." Yoda warned, reading him again. "Seductive, is the Dark Side. Fail, you might."

Qui-Gon nodded, his spirit heavy under the bone-deep knowledge that he had already failed.

 

* * *

He waited until nightfall before returning to Obi-Wan's cell. The narrow bunk had been replaced yet again, and Obi-Wan was sitting propped against the wall, ankles crossed, staring at the high grated window.

"Do you know," he began conversationally as Qui-Gon entered the cell, not looking at him. "That I can only see six stars through this grate at any one time? That seems to be the maximum. Once upon a time, I would simply have levitated up to look outside and seen as many millions of them as I wished."

He chuckled, a dry sound of bitter mirth. "But then... if I could do that, I could also tear down the wall." He sighed deeply, his hands folded in his lap. "My world... narrowed down to six stars."

Qui-Gon stared at him, silent and unmoving. "Forgive me, Obi-Wan."

Obi-Wan, catching the raw grief in Qui-Gon's voice, flicked a startled glance at him. Qui-Gon winced at the flash of fear he saw in his eyes.

"So," Obi-Wan turned his attention back to the grate and battled to keep his voice steady. "They've decided that I'm not worth saving."

"It was never their decision," Qui-Gon informed him, feeling a glimmer of pride in that Obi-Wan refused to tremble or protest.

Now Obi-Wan did look at him, and quickly noted that Qui-Gon held a slim blue bottle clasped tightly in one hand.

Obi-Wan gestured to it. "Is that for me?"

Qui-Gon looked down at his hand, opening his palm and staring fixedly at the bottle as if he had just noticed it and were wondering how it got there. "It seemed... fitting," he said tonelessly. "And it is the most painless method available to me."

"I'm noticing that you're not assuring me it's  _totally_  painless."

Qui-Gon shook his head. "It's not. It's all I could get. I'm sorry."

Obi-Wan nodded shortly. "Well, then." He swung his legs off the bed and stood. "Shall I just drink it like a good sport or would you prefer to wrestle me to the floor and force it down my throat?" His voice was mocking, eyes hooded and unreadable.

Qui-Gon tried to suppress the sob that welled up from his chest. He clutched at the neck of his Jedi tunic, broad hand closing into a fist, bunching into the thick material and pulling as if he would tear the symbol from him. The sob forced its way out, almost choking him. He was unprepared for the strength of it, the hideous power of the misery as it erupted from his throat in a howl. His features twisted and he sank to his knees on the hard floor, clenching the bottle convulsively in his hand. He raised his fist, glass in hand, intending to smash it into the floor, pound it to shards.

He could not do this. He could not kill his Padawan. He would rather die.

Obi-Wan threw himself to his knees and seized Qui-Gon's arm.

"Stop!" he shouted. He pried the bottle from Qui-Gon's grasp and tossed it to the bunk. "Fool!"  he raged, grabbing him and shaking him roughly. "You could have killed yourself!"

Qui-Gon shook his head over and over, weeping, his long hair hanging down over his face.

"What does it matter?" He was sobbing so hard that he almost gagged on the words, resting his weight on his hands and knees, desolate. He laid his forehead on Obi-Wan's shoulder and gave into the grief that rolled over him in tangible waves.

_Ten years of searching... all the Temples razed... the Jedi massacred... our religion... our culture... all my dear friends...  all down... all brought down._

"What does it matter?" Obi-Wan repeated incredulously. "What does it  _matter_?"

He seized Qui-Gon's head, fists tangled in his wild hair,  and pulled him forward, locking onto his mouth, pulling him forward even as he laid back, letting Qui-Gon cover his body.

"Am I supposed to be seduced by this?" Qui-Gon asked brokenly, even as he responded to Obi-Wan's touch, to the roaming hands that explored his back and neck and the muscles of his thighs. "Do you think you can influence me by giving me your body? Is that your plan?"

"You talk too much," Obi-Wan said gutturally, seizing the wide chin in his hand and kissing him hard, teeth cutting into his lip. Obi-Wan tasted blood, and even as Qui-Gon's arms went around him and the Jedi master succumbed finally to the fire that invited him to be consumed, his eyes were glancing to the bunk to make certain that the bottle was still there.

Obi-Wan laughed harshly. "Call the guards. Give it to them. Lock it up. I don't care. Just give me this. It's the last thing I'll ever ask of you."

He pulled and ripped at Qui-Gon's clothing, biting his throat, scooting down as he kissed his way to the fastenings at his waist. He tore at the closure of Qui-Gon breeches, pulling them open, a low, insistent growl issuing from his throat.

"I will have you once more. Once more. Just once more," he kept repeating over and over until at last he stoppered the litany with what he so fervently sought.

Qui-Gon gave a hoarse shout as Obi-Wan took him deep into his throat, reaching down to cup the back of the blonde head as he plunged his hips down in ecstasy.

Obi-Wan ripped his own breeches open to palm his cock and stroke it as he lay under Qui-Gon, his head supported as he swallowed him to the root, sucking hard, almost feeding on it.

Obi-Wan's fingers circled the base of Qui-Gon's cock, massaging the sensitive area gently in time with his mouth, drawing back to lap at the clear fluid leaking copiously from the slit. He squeezed his own penis roughly, fist pumping, sparing nothing for finesse or style, bringing himself and Qui-Gon to the brink quicker than they had every done so before, swallowing his spurting release with a shuddering groan. His own seed splashed hotly on his belly, coating his hand.

Qui-Gon threw his head back and shouted his orgasm to the blank ceiling, the bare walls and the loveless cell, and inside himself he reached a last time for the long-lost bond he had formed with a mischievous young Padawan, astounded when he found it waiting inside him, intact, despite it all. Despite everything.

They collapsed on the floor, Obi-Wan rolling out from under him to lay gasping and trembling beside him, licking his lips for the last taste of his lover. Qui-Gon reached out and laid a comforting hand on his quivering shoulder, sending a filament of communion through their reformed bond. Obi-Wan responded with a weak signal of his own, crossing his arms over his chest and huddling into a ball.

Qui-Gon stared up at the ceiling, reassembling his scattered thoughts. Obi-Wan was still very much lost. He supposed he was now, too, and what did it matter when they had each other?

Obi-Wan read his master's thoughts and sensed the grim resolve in him to walk whatever path Obi-Wan would, to follow him down into hell if he had to.

Then, for the first time since Sidious had taken him by force from Coruscant, Obi-Wan dared to look inside himself. What he saw there was the crouched and shriveled scorpion that passed for his spirit, claws at the ready, jaws dripping venom. A black and tainted thing so ruined that its sting was the only pleasure it could offer.

He pictured Qui-Gon acquiring a twin soul, driven from the light, paired with him, hunted by Sidious, bonded forever to evil. The two of them engaged in drawing first blood from each other for as long as they lived.

And Obi-Wan chose.

Obi-Wan stopped trembling. Without a word, he rose to his feet. Qui- Gon, misunderstanding his intent, stood with him.

"We should go immediately," Qui-Gon said urgently, attempting to put his torn robes and mussed hair to rights.

Obi-Wan heard his master with wry amusement. For Qui-Gon, as always, the matter was settled as soon as he made  _his_  mind up.

"The other masters will not wish to let you leave," he went on."We must be extremely careful."

Obi-Wan scooped the small bottle from the bunk and uncapped it. He peered down into the shallow depth, wrinkling his nose at the acrid smell. He wondered what the dosage was, then shrugged.

 _One should embrace one's chosen death,_  he decided and tipped the entire contents into his mouth. He swallowed the dark liquid, coughing at the caustic taste.

Qui-Gon turned just as Obi-Wan coughed and wiped a thread of the black fluid from his beard. He moved with lightning swiftness and seized Obi-Wan. He spun him around and pressed his mouth hard against the younger man's, ignoring his shocked and horrified response, the desperate attempt to wrench himself out of Qui-Gon's grasp, clamping his lips shut, trying to pull away.

**_Master, NO!_ **

Qui-Gon bit Obi-Wan's lip savagely to make him open his mouth, fist gripping the hair at the nape of his neck, jerking his head back, tongue thrusting inside, stroking into the soft inner recesses for the taste of death.

Obi-Wan's mind was wide open, broadcasting his thoughts and calling out in a blind panic to the masters within the Temple, praying that it was not too late for them to save Qui-Gon.

His own death he could accomplish without remorse, but now the thought of Qui-Gon dying sent him into near-hysteria. This was not at all what he had intended.

The first, deadly pangs of the toxin hit him. _OH gods... it hurts! Hurts!_

He pushed feebly at Qui-Gon's shoulders, his strength already fading as the swift poison took him, tearing his bones down into liquid agony.

They both fell across the bunk, the strength flowing out of them like water. Obi-Wan rolled onto his back, watching the room spin.   
    
"Sssshhh," Qui-Gon slurred. "Quiet... now..."

Obi-Wan shook his head. "No... nonono! You can't die..." His voice failed him as his throat closed up, lungs shutting down. With his last strength he called again for the other Jedi, reassuring himself that they were on their way.

_It's not too late for you, they're coming. Hear them come? Hold on, Qui-Gon, there is still life for you!_

Qui-Gon only pulled him close and pressed a soft kiss to lips that were slowly turning a cyanotic blue.

_You were my life._

Obi-Wan traced the curve of Qui-Gon's mouth with nerveless fingers, raging against his decision and knowing there was absolutely nothing he could do about it.  _My master. My love..._

To the last, Obi-Wan looked only at Qui-Gon. The Jedi master stared into Obi-Wan's crystal eyes as they turned sleepy and drooping and then closed forever.  His large hands clutched in Obi-Wan's hair, pulling the golden head down to his breast to cradle him one final time.

His last thought, as the edges of his own vision began to turn black, was the dear hope that when he opened his eyes, Obi-Wan would be waiting for him.

For his sake, he wished there would be stars. 


End file.
